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Missile Defense Pushed in Arctic
The New York Times, December 9, 1958.— Defense officials said that creation of a huge new missile-detection system in the Arctic was “solidly on schedule” despite severe weather difficulties. It is the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System and strict military secrecy surrounds much of its detail.
There are three other systems for defense against attack over the Arctic areas. These are the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, a 9,000-mile electronic fence extending from Alaska to Baffin Bay; the mid-Canada line of radar stations and the Pine Tree system for aircraft control and warning along the Canadian-United States boundaries.
Highly Classified Project
The cost of the new system, its detection sites, the time it will go into operation are not made public. A spokesman for Brig. Gen. Charles B. Root, chief of the Air Force Electronics Defense Systems Division, said that the system was “a highly classified proj'ect.”
The announcement concerning the progress of the project was made by General Root and William L. Richardson, administrator of project for the Radio Corporation of America, which is prime contractor to the Air Force in construction.
The system will have “long-range radar bases” to “provide prompt warning of missile attack across the polar region.” It will supplement the DEW Line, which is designed to provide early warning against attack by bombers.
Defense experts have said that radar powerful enough can detect missiles in flight at great distances. Bombers or other aircraft flying low behind the curvature of the earth require a somewhat different detection system.
Communications Link
The new system will be linked with the
North American Defense Command headquarters at Colorado Springs through a communications network, according to yesterday’s announcement. The network is being constructed by the Western Electric Company under a separate contract.
The over-all project is being directed by the Air Force, construction is being supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy is providing transportation by ship for “massive quantities of equipment, materials and supplies.” The Navy has also lent to the Air Force a floating power plant.
There have been reports that one of the new system’s detection sites is in the Aleutian Islands and that another is near Thule, Greenland. Detection ranges have been reported to be 3,500 miles.
Weather has been a continuing problem in the work on the new system. To help keep the work going during the winter a “crash,” or all-out, construction plan was used to establish a center “far above the Arctic Circle.” Ground was leveled, roads built, and storage facilities created.
It was an “intense race against winter,” General Root’s office said.
Circus tents have been erected over some construction spots, with hot air pumped in to make continued activity possible. At one port engineers lowered three 1,000-foot tubes into the water alongside docks and sent bubbles up to delay as long as possible the forming of ice. It helped for a time, then the Arctic cold overwhelmed the port.
Navy Cuts Back Seaplane Order
The New York Times, November 25, 1958. —The Navy curtailed production today of the Seamaster, a large jet-powered seaplane that had been exptected to usher in a new concept in naval warfare.
The Navy said that only fourteen of the
ABOARD BRITAIN’S EXPERIMENTAL GUIDED-WEAPONS SHIP
HMS Girdle Ness, an 8,500-ton converted landing craft maintenance ship has recently been in the Mediterranean testing the Royal Navy’s medium-range ground-to-air missile, Seaslug. Shown above is the direction room for air surveillance and control of target aircraft.
LAUNCHING OF THE GUIDED-MISSILE FRIGATE LUCE, DECEMBER, 1958
DLG-7 is one of three ships of her type under construction at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s Quincy Shipyard. Completion of the 5,000-tonner is estimated for the spring of 1960.
speedy, eighty-ton seaplanes would be produced, instead of the twenty-four originally ordered from the Martin Company of Baltimore. The cut-back could save as much as $60,000,000.
Today’s was the first in what is expected to be a series of economy moves as the military services attempt to hold down defense expenditures.
Defense spending is running at an annual rate of $40,800,000,000, and Pentagon officials said that the administration had ordered that the military budget be held to about this level in the coming fiscal year, which starts
July l.
Economy Campaign
The Administration’s economy campaign, directed by President Eisenhower, has forced the military services to consider cancellation or curtailment of several weapons programs.
The Secretary of Defense, Neil H. Mac- Elroy, conferred today with Navy and Army officials in preparation for a meeting later this week with President Eisenhower, at Augusta, Ga.
It is expected that this meeting will result in decisions on the military budget.
The Navy announcement of the curtailment made no mention of reasons, but Navy officials said the “dollar squeeze” was the primary cause.
The Seamaster, the world’s first multi-jet seaplane, also has run into technical difficulties. The first two planes crashed because of malfunctions in the control system, forcing a delay in production.
Craft Was Praised
The Navy placed great hopes in the 600- mile an hour plane as airpower that would not be dependent upon carriers or land bases. At one point the Air Force was viewing the plane as a supplement to its land-based fleet of strategic bombers.
Today the Navy cited “changing concepts and other developments in naval warfare,” presumably the emergence of newer weapons delivery systems, such as the submarine-based Polaris ballistic missile.
The Martin Company had two production contracts totaling $290,038,242—one for $175,593,180 for the six developmental models which have been test flown but not yet officially turned over to the Navy, and one for $114,445,062 for production of eighteen operational models.
The curtailment will be made in the latter contract.
The Navy had no immediate estimate of savings, since the contract must be renegotiated with Martin, but the planes cost between $6,000,000 and $7,000,000 each.
Navy Holds Public Test
The Baltimore Sun, November 26, 1958.— The Navy demonstrated its Polaris missile shipboard launching system publicly for the first time here, blasting a dummy slug closely resembling a Polaris missile off a ship tied to a pier.
The demonstration was the third test of the system since the mechanism was installed aboard the missile launching ship Observation Island November 1.
As in the two previous tests, today’s demonstration was successful.
The dummy slug, weighing about 14 tons, standing about 30 feet high and about 4 feet in diameter, shot out of the ship’s single firing tube in a cloud of smoke. It rose quickly some 150 feet and lazily arched into the water nearby with a big splash. Its entire flight lasted about fifteen seconds.
Firing Mechanism
The dummy slug has no rocket engines. The system is used to test the firing mechanism that eventually will be placed in submarines. From submarines, the Polaris will be fired to the surface using this type launching mechanism. At the surface the rocket engines will light off, sending the missile on its 1,200 to 1,500 mile trip.
The Observation Island, under the command of Capt. L. M. Slack, will be commissioned December 5. A Navy spokesman said the commissioning of the ship will open a new trend in naval warfare and he likened the event in significance to the landing of the first airplane aboard the Langley, the Navy’s first aircraft carrier.
* * *
New Look in Radar for Missile Ships
Sperry Gyroscope Co. release, November 28, 1958.—Fighting ships equipped with the famous surface-to-air Terrier missiles will feature the new look in radar: slim, compact, and devastatingly accurate.
The Navy announced that a highly accurate, compact, completely automatic missile guidance radar system (AN/SPG-55) would be installed on ships armed with the latest version of the Terrier missile. Navy’s first nu-
THE SPG-55 ANTENNA
clear carrier and cruiser will be equipped with the new system. It will be installed on frigates also.
The SPG-55 succeeds the SPQ-5 and SPQ- 5A systems. All were developed by Sperry Gyroscope Company of Great Neck, N.Y. for Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance. The SPQ-5 system which featured massive, turret-like antenna was the most precise equipment available for this work until the new system was introduced.
The new, highly reliable, extremely accurate, light weight radar system is “untouched by human hands” in operation. From the time the target is designated to the radar through the time the radar goes into automatic tracking, the radar operator’s sole function is to act as an observer. The radar can be operated manually or automatically.
In addition to improving the range and size of the present equipment, the new radar has a simpler, lighter above-deck framework assembly, and is easier to maintain and adjust.
Sperry will produce the equipment at its MacArthur Field facility.
Shipping Tonnage at Peak in World
The New York Times, November 26, 1958. —The world merchant marine, which has tripled in the last four decades, continues to grow and has reached a new record size.
This was reported by Lloyd’s Register of Shipping with the publication here and in London of its statistical tables for 1958. The international ship-classification society said that on June 30 there were 35,202 steamships or motor vessels of 100 gross tons or more. They total 118,033,731 gross tons.
During the year, the fleet grew by 7,787,650 tons. It was the largest annual increase since 1948, when the society started again after World War II to compile its statistics. During the last ten years, the world fleet grew by 37,742,138 tons. In 1908, it consisted of 40,882,717 tons.
The record increase during the year was widely distributed among the principal maritime nations, Lloyd’s Register noted. The main impetus again came from the Liberian “flag-of-convenience” fleet, which ousted Norway from third place in world standings despite the continued growth of the Norwegian fleet.
Four “Convenience Flags”
Four nations, Liberia, Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras, are called “flags of convenience.” Virtually all of their large fleets are owned by “foreign” owners attracted to registry under these flags by more favorable tax, labor and operating conditions.
During the year ended last June 30, the fleet of Liberia increased by more than two and one-half times as much as any other nation. It is the leading “flag-of-convenience” country.
Liberia added 2,612,349 gross tons during the year—more than one-third of the world’s increase during the period.
The United States merchant marine of 25,589,596 tons continued as the world’s largest, although it declined by 321,259 tons from 1957. The United States totals include 14,000,000 tons of shipping laid up in Government reserve fleets.
Brtiain and British Commonwealth nations were in second place with 24,655,125 tons, up 623,000 tons from 1957, Liberia ranked third with 10,078,778 tons, followed by Norway with 9,384,830 tons and Japan with 5,465,442 tons.
Japanese Near Peak
The Japanese fleet, to which 1,050,000 tons were added since 1957, was only slightly below its pre-World War II peak of 5,629,849 tons, reached in 1939.
As the result of an extensive post-war rebuilding, 66.2 per cent of the Japanese merchant fleet was less than ten years old. Norway is the only principal maritime nation with a more modern fleet, with 69.8 per cent of it ships less than ten years old.
By contrast, the United States, with a huge number of World War Il-built vessels in its fleet, only lists 7.5 per cent of its shipping as less than ten years of age.
Lloyd’s Register noted that the world total of tankers increased by 3,652,000 tons over the year. It totaled 33,590,000 tons or 28.5 per cent of all powered ships, as compared with 27.2 per cent a year ago. In 1939, the tanker fleet of 11,586,000 tons represented only 16.9 per cent of the world’s merchant tonnage.
The society said that 71,724,000 tons of world shipping was steam-powered and
46.310.0 tons, Diesel-powered. Only
8.198.0 tons of steamships, about 7 per cent of the world total, still use coal for fuel.
Almost half of the world’s active tonnage, or 10,820 ships of 50,147,000 tons, was classified by the society at the end of last June.
The Navy in a Nuclear Age
Translated from Bulletin cTInformation de la Marine Rationale, 21 October, 1958.—There was a time when certain not too competent officers were known as “scientists” to their fellow officers, and as “seamen” to professional scientists. This does not, however, indicate any basic opposition between the two careers.
Indeed, navigation and astronomy have always held the interest of the inquiring mind.
However, in our time science is spreading its influence so rapidly over a broad expanse of human activity that one must be concerned with the place of naval construction and the risk of falling behind. Is this risk greater in our country than elsewhere?
The Objective
First of all, what kind of a navy do we build in the atomic era?
Our country, a narrow continental fringe, has as emergency exit only the high seas and coastal allies who could lend a hand in ultimate need. Our offensive power can come chiefly from the sea, just as survival depends on the extent to which we and our allies can keep the sea lanes open.
To the nuclear weapon conceived for zone bombardment, the ship remains a pointed, fluid, and lasting goal; it must be detected and then identified before attack, something not altogether easy at the outset of a conflict in a sea traveled by thousands of vessels of all nationalities. Attack on a ship is more difficult, less certain than on a land objective.
The ship can be a more dangerous launcher of long-range missiles, where land ramps can be located in advance and more easily hit. This is even more true if the vessel is submersible.
Nuclear propulsion increases autonomy, lessens the logistic problem, and makes for easy fuel storing by eliminating oil parks.
The vessel which stands to gain most by the change-over is the atomic submarine, which both offensively and in the fight against opposing submarines gives a completely new emphasis to naval strategy.
At sea the threat is chiefly submarine and aerial; surface combat is going to be exceptional. The main problems center on detection, identification, and transmission of information above and below the surface of the sea, from airships as well as surface craft and submarines.
This brief summary indicates the tie-up between the navy and the development of science of the most exacting form.
Nuclear physics, radiation, and the propagation of electromagnetic and mechanical fields above and below the sea are the fields in which scientific activity is concentrated. They are the basis of the Navy’s evolution.
Basic Research and the Scientific Mind
There was a time when a ship could suffice for laboratory research; astronomy, oceanography, etc. Today research requires a costly plan suited to the exact needs of a project, and the goals are innumerable.
On the French scale, research can be made only by specialized units. Neither the Navy nor the other armed forces has the material possibilities to manage great basic research plants.
This does not, however, condemn us to ignorance. The thirst for scientific studies is acute, and can become even more so in the more demanding younger generations. There is no difficulty in interesting engineers and officers; candidates for university degrees and scientific schools are more numerous than the billets allowed by service requirements. Electronics and, later, nuclear physics provoked regular tidal waves. Emulation and competition are not lacking, and the attraction of new sciences adds to the classic charm of the seagoing profession.
The same tendency is noted in the naval reserve personnel.
The Navy was the first to create an officer reserve corps of the “Scientific Research” branch attracting the elite of the grandes ecoles.
If the direct conduct of basic research is outside the scope of the military, the qualifications achieved by naval personnel in this process enable the Navy to derive from such research the indispensable elements for furthering its mission. There are many engineers and officers on detached duty at laboratories or in intimate liaison with them. Research contracts are assigned to appropriate organisms. The action of the Scientific Action Committee of National Defense facilitates contacts with national researchers, and collaboration is being established with allied researchers within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance.
Applied Research
For the armed forces, applied research is a necessity; it is the basis of all concepts of armament and equipment, as well as progress.
This Navy practices it chiefly in areas which have less interest for peacetime industry; for instance, submarine acoustic devices, fire control from unstable platforms, guided missiles, etc.
Limitations of personnel, on the other hand, cause the Navy to rely quite often on the study bureaus of large industrial companies. Naval research and development in the fields of communications and electromagnetic detection constitute a major stimulus and material aid to our industries. If our participation is not direct, the defining of specifications, setting budgetary norms, evaluating the results of experiments, all require technical qualifications comparable to those of research engineers.
At times, applied research is carried on in the area of use. Engineers and officers practise it in testing centers and development commissions. It is also effected in the imagination as operational research, an activity as old as the art of war and practised by our forebears without their knowing it, much as Monsieur Jourdain had been speaking prose all his life without being aware of it.
Report from Germany
By Rear Admiral Siegfried H. Engel, Former German Navy
In a recent article Vice Admiral Ruge, Inspector of the Federal Navy, explained to the German public the importance of smaller fleets with regard to European defense. Such fleets, as Ruge asserts, considering the strategic situation of today are absolutely justified and have vindicated their right of existence. When closely cooperating with the friendly great seapowers and by continually exchanging experiences with other and bigger fleets they ought to be able to keep pace with modern developments, armament, and equipment without having to fear that the costs might exceed their means.
According to Ruge, Western Europe under a strategic point of view can be regarded as hardly more than a beachhead, which not being self-supporting is entirely left to supplies coming over the highways of the sea. Therefore “for us it is a matter of life and death
whether we succeed in keeping free the sea lanes.” That is where the small navies come in and where they may be able to play a very important part.
Since a small fleet naturally can not afford to have all types of ships, the Federal Republic from the beginning has restricted itself to those vessels really useful for its purposes. However a future naval war may be waged— and there is no doubt that aircraft and submarines will have to bear the brunt of the fight—surface vessels in Ruge’s opinion still will be needed. “Fleets will remain,” he concludes.
As for Germany’s special mission within the framework of NATO-defense the admiral writes: “We as all the other nations belonging to NATO are responsible for defending the Atlantic against an enemy’s submarine threat, for that area in case of war will undoubtedly be the main hunting ground of the powerful submarine force of the Soviet Union. Therefore we shall fulfill best our task when together with the Danish Navy we defend the outlets of the Baltic so efficiently that the Russians won’t be able to sortie into Atlantic waters. A future battle to be fought there will already have been half decided in the Danish narrows, the Sound and the Belts.”
According to Ruge the Soviet Union and the small navies of the satellite-states bordering on the Baltic—Poland and Eastern Germany—have at their disposal at present 8 cruisers, 80 destroyers and frigates, about 460 minesweepers, approximately 150 submarines, 219 MTB’s, and about 1,500 aircraft. Once the Federal Navy has attained its full strength, this formidable force can be opposed, including the Danish fleet, by 36 destroyers and escorts, 90 minesweepers, 18 submarines, 60 MTB’s and 58 aircraft. At another occasion Admiral Ruge has made known that the second group of 4 destroyers to be built will be equipped with ballistic missiles somewhat smaller than the U. S. Terrier. The destroyers will be constructed as
soon as this new type of rocket has finished its development.
According to latest news the third—and so far last—group of destroyers for the Federal Navy will have to wait for the result of consultations between the Ministry of Defense and the budget committee of the Bundestag.
For the first time since the war a German submarine—the Hecht—has entered a British port. Her crew will undergo training with the diving-bell.
The British frigate Oakley, mentioned recently as having been purchased in Great Britain, has arrived at Kiel where she was named Gneisenau and has hoisted the German flag. She carries six 10.2-cm guns and the appropriate antiaircraft armament.
U. S. Plans 8 Space Probes in ’59
By John W. Finney
The New York Times, November 26, 1958. —The United States is planning to launch space probes at the rate of eight to twelve a year starting in 1959.
This program is being drafted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to follow the projects of the International Geophysical Year, which ends Dec. 31.
The new agency has been given the responsibility of continuing the nation’s space research program.
The space probes will involve satellites and instrumented projectiles that will be shot to the vicinity of the moon and of such near-by planets as Mars and Venus.
At the outset, however, the emphasis will be on exploring the environs of the earth with satellites. This is the area that was to have been explored in the IGY satellite program, which failed to live up to hopes.
To overcome the difficulties that plagued the IGY program, the new agency is attempting to set a more deliberate pace for future space projects. There will be more emphasis on engineering detail and less on meeting firing deadlines. Officials are convinced that speed-ups led to many of the launching failures.
This attitude was reflected in the space agency’s decision to postpone further Vanguard launching attempts until next year to permit a detailed teachnical evaluation of the launching rocket and to attempt to find out the cause of the successive failures.
The Navy’s Vanguard project, which was originally conceived as part of the IGY will become the space agency’s satellite program until bigger and better satellites can be developed.
Four of the 21.5-pound Vanguard satellites are still to be launched, with the next firing expected in early February.
Looking to the future, the agency has ordered several Thor-Able and Jupiter II rockets for a continuing program. These rockets, built around the intermediate range ballistic missiles developed by the Air Force and Army, are to launch satellites weighing several hundred pounds later next year.
The transfer of space research to the Space Administration, which is still in the process of organization, has created concern among some scientists that there will be a lapse in the nation’s space program.
It takes eight months to a year to prepare an instrumented satellite for launching and about the same length of time to obtain a launching rocket from the assembly line. Therefore, the future rate of space probes depends on decisions made now on experiments and rockets orders.
Lag Is Ruled Out
Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, deputy administrator of the space agency, stated flatly in an interview, however, that “there will be no lag in the program.”
Until new experiments can be decided upon, the Space Administration will rely heavily on experiments developed for the Vanguard program that were never launched. As bigger payloads become available, two or more major experiments will probably be included in one satellite.
The Space Administration is now in the process of drafting detailed experiments for a long-range program in cooperation with the newly formed Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Board is surveying hundreds of proposed satellite experiments sent in by scientists throughout the nation.
Space Administration officials say that one high-priority project is to map in more detail and depth and intensity of the earth’s radiation, discovered by the first Army Explorer satellite, and to learn more about its composition.
Other experiments being planned, some of them inherited by the new agency, include:
Testing one of the predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, that time is variable. One highly precise atomic clock would be placed in a satellite and checked against one on the ground.
Investigation of the auroras near the poles. This would require a satellite sent more on a north-south orbit than in the past.
Satellite that would photograph the sun, planets and stars from above the distorting blanket of the earth’s atmosphere. This would require recovery of films by a returnable capsule.
A 100-foot inflatable balloon that could be tracked optically, thus furnishing detailed information on the density of matter in space.
Another satellite experiment proposed by Dr. Gerald M. Clemence, scientific director of the Naval Observatory, was to place artificial bodies in a fixed position in relation to the earth and moon to permit more detailed study of the lunar mass and distance.
Queen Launches Giant Oil Tanker
The New York Times, November 16, 1958. —The Queen of Greece gave her blessing today to the largest commercial cargo ship ever built in the United States.
Queen Frederika gave a giant tanker her daughter’s name—Princess Sophie.
A second before the 70,700-ton tanker started down the ways at the Bethlehem Steel Company yards, the Queen swung a bottle of champagne against the towering gray bow and said “I christen this ship Princess Sophie; may God bless her and all who sail with her.”
Princess Sophie and Crown Prince Constantine, two of the Queen’s three children, stood beside their mother as she sponsored the vessel.
Ship Built for Niarchos
The Princess Sophie, designed by Bethlehem’s technical department here in Quincy, is being built for the World Brilliance Corporation, one of the companies of Stavros S. Niarchos, operator of one of the largest independent shipping fleets in the world. Mr. Niarchos was present on the launching stand.
His latest ship, with a carrying capacity of 27,000,000 gallons and a speed of about 17 knots, will be able to carry a full load from the Persian Gulf to California at a cost of roughly' 1 cent a gallon.
Queen Visits Atom Ship
Queen Frederika who has been touring the United States for several weeks, left the launching stand with other members of the royal party to visit this country’s first atomic- powered cruiser, the USS Long Beach, under construction not far from the tanker’s ways.
This Bethlehem yard, one of the nation’s largest, is also building the first atomic frigate.
Later, the launching party and other guests of the shipyard attended a reception honoring the Queen at the Hotel Sheraton Plaza in Boston. Speakers at the reception included Arthur B. Homer, president of Bethlehem Steel Company, Mr. Niarchos and Daniel D. Strohmeier, vice president of Bethlehem’s shipbuilding division.
Age of TV Arrives in the Antarctic
By Philip Benjamin
The New York Times, November 18, 1958. —Television has come to the Antarctic.
Closed-circuit system based on the Navy- icebreaker Glacier has been transmitting pictures of ice, seals, penguins and Antarctic landmarks.
A transmitter was installed on a helicopter for the primary purpose of televising ice conditions in the icebreaker’s path in the Ross Sea during the voyage from New Zealand.
Captain Joseph Houston of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the Glacier's skipper, said that the experiment had worked well. The Glacier arrived here Nov. 1.
An ice expert was sent aloft during the trip to spot likely openings through 600 miles of pack ice. Pictures of the leads were transmitted to a television receiver on the bridge of the ship.
Admiral’s Visit Shown
The visit to the Glacier of Rear Admiral George Dufek, commander of the naval support base here, was televised “in true newsreel fashion.”
“We were able to photograph arrival in an Otter [a single-engine ski plane], his descent to the ice and his arrival over the side of the Glacier,” Commander Walker said.
The helicopter television transmitter also broadcast pictures of seals and penguins on the ice, the hut built at Cape Royds by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1907 expedition and the remains at Cape Evans from Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911 expedition.
Commander Walker said that he had found telephone equipment of 1911 vintage at Cape Royds, apparently part of a system that Scott had set up between his hut at Mc- Murdo sound and Cape Royds.
“It’s interesting to note that Scott brought the first telephone to the Antarctic in 1911,” Commander Walker said. “And it’s a curious twist of fate that the first television equipment was used forty-seven years later in the same area as the first telephone.”
Commander Walker had copied out parts of Scott’s diary concerning the telephone hookup. He read the following entry for Aug. 1, 1911:
“Two telephones now in use. Bare aluminum wire and earth return. At 5 o’clock hut point telephone bell suddenly rang. In a minute or two communication was established. It seems wonderful in this primitive land to be talking to our fellow beings fifteen miles away.”
Commander Walker also said that he had made a descent into the icy waters of Mc- Murdo Sound. Dressed in an immersion suit, he went down to examine the Glacier's screws, which were thought to have been damaged in breaking through nine-foot ice. He found the screws undamaged, a most reassuring finding.
“The water temperature was 27 degrees above zero,” he said. “I remained in the water for five minutes and suffered only from cold fingers.”
* * *
[February Lockheed to Train Navy Polaris Teams
Aviation Week, November 17, 1958.—Under contract with the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Lockheed’s Missile Division is training—directly or through subcontractors— Navy specialist personnel in major phases of operating and maintaining the Polaris fleet ballistic missile weapon system.
Goal of the program is a nucleus of key trained officers and enlisted men to assume an active role in further development of the missile, particularly in the flight test program. Training is being conducted at Lockheed’s Sunnyvale, Palo Alto and Santa Cruz Mountain facilities. Trainees are also receiving instruction in propulsion at Aerojet-General, Sacramento, in launching systems at Wes- tinghouse Electric Corp., Sunnyvale, and in fire control and guidance at General Electric Co., Pittsfield, Mass.
Initial training program includes about 78 enlisted men and six officers and will train specialists in flight control, telemetering, structures handling, propulsion, guidance, fire control, launching and handling.
Trainees receive one week of formal classroom indoctrination by members of Lockheed’s training and job analysis department, then begin on-the-job training conducted in production areas, shops, prototype laboratory and checkout areas.
Part of the trainee group will be transferred to Lockheed’s Polaris test facility at Cape Canaveral, Fla., to continue training with Lockheed missile crews under supervision of Special Projects Office, Navy Bureau of Ordnance. Others will be assigned to USS Observation Island, a specially modified vessel for missile development work.
Atom Clock Held Key to Time Rate
The New York Times, November 17, 1958. -—The suggestion that earth satellites and atomic clocks be used to prove whether or not time slows down as velocity increases has been renewed by an astronomer at Columbia University.
This relationship between time and velocity is one of the consequences of Einstein’s
theory of relativity, for which adequate proof is still lacking, according to Dr. Lloyd Motz. Dr. Motz, associate professor of astronomy, has written his views in the quarterly Columbia University Forum.
He suggests, as other physicists have done previously, that atomic clocks carried by earth satellites could be used for conclusive experiments.
Heretofore, means have not been available for achieving the necessary conditions of speed and precision to detect any slowing of time on a fast-moving object. The atomic clock, which Dr. Motz refers to in the fall issue of the publication, is known as a maser.
A maser clock on a satellite travelling at 18,000 miles per hour would be expected to lag behind a comparable time measurer on earth by one twenty-thousandth of a second after a full day, the astronomer said.
Two masers, used as checks against each other, have been compared to an accuracy of one part in 1,000,000,000, according to the article.
Maser is a coined word derived from the phrase “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” The devices depend for their great degree of accuracy on the constant frequency of oscillation produced from the radiation of certain gases.
Columbia scientists recently used masers to confirm again the postulate in Einstein’s theory that the speed of light itself is a constant.
The relative slowing of time with increasing velocity would have consequences for long-distance space travelers, Dr. Motz said. Traveling at four-fifths the speed of light, a space ship would take ten years-—as measured on earth—to make a round trip to the nearest stellar neighbor. The star, Alpha Cen- tauri, is four and one-half light years away.
To the travelers, the elapsed time would appear to be only six years, Dr. Motz said. Whether the returned travelers would then be four years younger than they would have been had they stayed home, is a matter of debate among scientists.
First of Her Kind
By Desmond Wettern
In September, 1958, the first ship of an entirely new type was accepted into service with the Royal Navy. HMS Echo, an inshore survey craft, was launched on 1 May 1957 and will shortly be followed into service by her sister ships Egeria and Enterprise.
With many navies survey ships are frequently vessels which have become obsolete in more active roles and are “relegated” to the surveying service. Alternatively, ships designed for very different duties are converted during the course of construction and the survey ship that is built for the job is still the exception.
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For many years charts issued by the Hydrographic Department of the Royal Navy have enjoyed a world-wide reputation for accuracy. Up-to-date and accurate charts are of the utmost importance especially to a nation such as Britain with a merchant marine serving all parts of the world. But of all the duties carried out by the Royal Navy in peacetime surveying is one which is of universal service to the seafarer of every nationality. Of the sea areas around the British Isles one of the busiest, the Thames Estuary, is also one presenting an enormous number of potential hazards to shipping. To both North and South of the approaches to the Port of London as well as in the main channel there are innumerable sandbanks. Some of these banks, such as the Goodwins, lying off the northeast coast of Kent, have in the past been the graves of many ships. But what really makes these sandbanks hazardous is the constant changing which occurs in their positions, depth of water above them and the channels between them. For this reason, shortly after the war the Royal Navy formed what was known as the East Coast Survey Unit. Several 72 ft. Harbor Defense Motor Launches were disarmed and fitted out as inshore survey craft. But a few years ago it became obvious that these craft, built in many cases early in the war, were worn out and replacements were required. Therefore a new design, based on that of the many wooden inshore minesweepers which are serving in considerable
numbers in the R.N. and in the French Navy, was produced and the first order was placed with White’s yard at Cowes, Isle of Wight.
The Echo displaces 160 tons, is 106 ft. 10 in. extreme length and has a beam of 21 ft. 11 in. It is officially reported that considerable use has been made of glued wood laminated sections in her hull and she is powered by diesel. Her maximum speed is around 14 knots. The major operational requirements considered when her design was drawn up were for a craft able to navigate in shoal water, to obtain depths and to detect the existence of wrecks or obstructions on the sea bed, combined with the ability to fix the position of the craft with accuracy. For these reasons she is fitted with echo-sounders and sonar equipment. She also carries equipment for carrying out triangulation ashore, which provides the basis for fixing the craft’s position afloat, by horizontal sextant angles. Her radar equipment is of the most modern pattern which allows for measuring ranges accurately for obtaining fixes. Of her crew of 19 five are employed largely for surveying duties, of these two are officers and three Survey Recorder rates. The Echo can work on detached assignments and carries a launch fitted with echo-sounding equipment for shallow water survey work. Her modern chartroom allows survey plotting and cimpilation to be carried out on board.
In the tradition of the Royal Navy’s sur- veving service she is painted all white with a light brown mast. Though disarmed she would carry a 40 mm. in wartime.
The Echo has a name which has been in the Royal Navy since 1758. Altogether 12 ships of the name have served in the R.N.; the 11th was a destroyer built in the 1930s which, in her later years, was loaned to the Royal Hellenic Navy as the Navarinon. She was handed back to the R.N. at Malta in 1956 for scrapping. An earlier Echo, one of the first paddle steamers to serve in the R.N., was commanded by a Lieutenant Bullock from 1827 to 1829. She was employed on surveying duties in the approaches to the Thames and discovered a channel which was promptly named the “Bullock Channel.” During Queen Victoria’s reign the name was changed to Duke of Edinburgh Channel and then eventually to South Edinburgh Channel. The Echo's two sister ships, Enterprise and Egeria, have traditional survey ship names. Though the previous Enterprise was a cruiser completed just after the 1914-18 War, an earlier ship of the name was one of the vessels employed in the search for the Franklin expedition. A previous Egeria carried out an extensive survey of the coast of British Columbia before the 1914— 18 War.
Commenting on the new Echo, Captain Ritchie, Deputy Hydrographer, said that her radar was of an improved type compared with anything previously fitted in larger survey ships. The echo-sounding gear in her 20 ft. diesel-powered dory was portable and power was supplied from batteries which were kept charged by the boat’s diesel. It was the intention of his department to employ Echo and her two sister ships as a team on occasions.
Her commanding officer had already reported very favorably on her sea-keeping qualities, he said. An unusual feature of her design is that she is fitted with variable pitch propellers which are controlled directly from the bridge. Unlike the former motor launches employed on coastal surveys, the large chart- room in Echo allowed the ship’s hydrographers to work on charts and do paper work on board, provided a calm anchorage could be found at the end of a day’s work or at weekends. Captain Ritchie pointed out that many people were surprised when told that Echo and her sister ships would be employed on “resurveys.” He was often asked why this was necessary. But the reason was obvious when one remembered that the approaches to three of Britain’s major ports, London, Bristol and Liverpool, abounded with constantly shifting sandbanks. With the South Edinburgh Channel for example it was necessary to carry out a survey at least once a year. In wartime, too, when constant alterations had to be made in the movement of shipping along the coasts to avoid enemy minefields and so on, the work of ships such as Echo was, if anything, even more important than in peacetime.
Within a matter of two or three days of completing her trials the new Echo started work. The liner Rangitiki, outward bound from London to New Zealand, ran aground off the Kent Coast in an area plainly marked on the chart as having an adequate depth of water. It did not take the Echo long to find that a sandbank had shifted. Depths which read 66 ft. on the chart were found to be only 26 ft. Immediately the Admiralty issued a navigational warning to shipping. The SouthWest Goodwin buoy was shifted and another placed to mark the new shallow area. Shipping has been warned to navigate outside the South Goodwin lightship. Meanwhile the Echo is carrying on with her work so that the Admiralty charts can be re-drawn. Final comment from a shore-based lifeboat which was in company with the Echo during particularly heavy weather on this survey: “We have never seen the whole keel of a boat all at the same time before.” Echo's reply over the radio telephone is not recorded.
Standard Time Nears Its 75th Milestone
The New York Times, November 16, 1958. —Tuesday is the seventy-fifth anniversary of standard time.
Before Nov. 18, 1883, a traveler who crossed the country by train had to change his watch some twenty times. Wisconsin alone is reported to have had thirty-eight time zones and Michigan and Illinois twenty-seven each.
In those days the nation operated on a series of local times called “sun time.” Under this system, the time observed was based on the moment that the sun reached its highest point above some agreed-upon landmark. That instant was fixed as noon.
Railroads generally operated on the time observed in their headquarters cities or in some other major cities along their lines. Confusion among travelers was common, and railroad officials decided to do something about it.
Starting in May, 1872, in St. Louis, they held a series of meetings that eventually evolved the system of standard time. The leading spirit behind the idea, according to the Association of American Railroads, was William F. Allen, a railroad expert who promoted the idea of dividing the country into four time zones, based on sun time at the 75th, 90th, 105th and 120th meridians west of Greewich, England.
This was the basis for the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.
Even though standard time came into general use on railroads in 1883, it was not accepted by many localities until much later. Official sanction did not come until March 19, 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act. Many persons argued that sun time was nature’s time and that anything different would be unnatural.
The four noons now observed in this country are no longer based on the sun. They are computed from the moment certain stars pass a fine hairline in a telescope every night at the Naval Observatory at Washington.
British Microscope Can View “in Depth”
The New York Times, November 23, 1958. -—Researchers at the University of Cambridge have designed a microscope capable of providing magnification in depth so that the object appears as if it were in a large luminous cube.
It will throw light, it is believed, on many biological problems, particularly those associated with layers of tissue such as the network of nerves in the brain.
By a simple scanning device, the designers say they can avoid the need for cutting and sometimes damaging the exceptionally thin slices of tissue necessary for normal microscopic examinations.
The new instrument, called the “solid- image microscope,” operates by vibrating whatever is being viewed on the slide at the rate of fifty upward and downward movements a second.
This enables the lower lens of the microscope, the objective, to pick up a series of images from the top to the bottom of the relatively thick object under examination.
[February Newest U. S. Passenger Ship Sails
The Baltimore Sun, December 14, 1958.— The nation’s newest passenger ship, the SS Argentina, sailed on her maiden voyage yesterday to South America.
The $26,000,000 Moore-McCormack Line ship was built for tropical cruising with draft- free air conditioning throughout. Another special feature is the Denny-Brown stabilizers, which will eliminate any rolling should the ship encounter rough weather.
3-Button Action
The stabilizers can be put into action simply by the master’s pushing a button that signals “start stabilizers.” An engineer follows through and signals “stabilizers ready.” The stabilizers are then projected into the sea by another button. This takes about two minutes.
The decor of the Argentina is accented in burnt oranges, yellows and golds, designed by Raymond Loewy Associates. The design is a combination of Spanish-Colonial and modern periods.
The Spanish-Colonial period on the Argentina is carried out in the custom-designed floor coverings, fabrics, wall designs and furniture. The modern scheme is carried out in the open public rooms on the promenade deck and in the dining salon.
Glass Walls Slide
Sliding glass walls enable the passengers to watch the water while relaxing in the ship’s main lounge.
A nursery has been designed for children up to 8 years of age. There is a “juke box room” for the teen-agers. A luxuriously outfitted theater offers the latest movies every day of the 31-day round trip.
Informal and formal dining are included. The informal atmosphere prevails at the social cafe section where a smorgasbord table is kept. Formal dining is available in the dining room on the main deck. The Spanish- Colonial period is carried out in the decorating theme particularly in the dining room, where 350 persons may be seated at one time.
Other features include a beauty parlor and a gymnasium for ladies, a barber shop and a gym for men, and a library and a dance studio for the newest South American and North American dance steps.
Two “siporters” (side-porters)—a crane device—are used for loading and unloading automobiles and general cargo through the ports on either side of the ship.
These siporters are the first to handle both cargo and autos.
More than a million square feet of micarta has been used in the interior of the ship. The micarta installed on the Argentina and its sister ship, the SS Brasil, was the biggest order in the history of the plastic laminates industry.
This material requires a minimum maintenance and the savings in time and expense for upkeep will amortize the original cost in approximately four years.
All First-Class Ship
The Argentina, like its sister ship, is an all first-class ship and offers four types of luxury accommodations for its 553 passengers. The most sumptuous are two-room suites that will accommodate from two to five persons. There are actually 182 staterooms altogether.
The Argentina will cruise at a speed in excess of 23 knots to the Barbados, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Bahia and Trinidad. The 12,657 miles are covered in 31 days.
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SUPPLY AND DEMAND PROBLEM
Contributed by Lieutenant (jg) William J. Lane, USN
For some weeks the breakage of water tumblers in the wardroom mess of our destroyer had been remedied by substituting jelly glasses, this being far easier (in the eyes of the mess caterer) than surveying and drawing replacements. As the situation grew worse, however, the inevitable happened—the commanding officer received his beverage in a jelly glass.
Scowling first at the glass and then at the mess caterer, he sternly remarked about the critical shortage of wardroom glassware and inquired. “Just what is being done about this?”
“Well, Captain,” replied the mess caterer, “we’re eating jelly as fast as we can, but we can’t seem to keep up with the breakage.”
★ ★ ★
COMPLETE CO-OPERATION
Contributed by Lieutenant J. M. Thompson, MSC, USN
During the early days of the Bougainville campaign, “Condition Red” so aroused a Marine Gunner that he set out to down all enemy aircraft singlehanded with his Tommy gun. The fact that the planes were completely out of reach did not matter. Each time the alarm was sounded, the Gunner would dash out of his foxhole and spray the sky.
The air raids were bad enough, but coupled with the activities of the frenzied Gunner, the men in the company felt that it would be safer in the infantry. They took their problem to the First Sergeant. Next time the air raid alarm sounded, the Gunner leaped out of his foxhole, spraying the sky with his trusty weapon. Behind him flew the First Sergeant dragging a huge club.
“Okay, Gunner,” yelled the Sergeant, “You get the high ones and I’ll get the low
ones.”
(The Naval Institute will pay $5.00 Jor each anecdote accepted for publication in the Proceedings.)
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